Kaya Koy a ghost town

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Saying goodbye to Salona we rented a car on Saturday mornıng and headed east. Our first stop along the Mediterranean coast was Kaya Koy a Lycian town originally named Levissi. İn the fırst millenium the Greek speaking Christians fled from Gemiler İsland to escape from raiding pirates and settled 2 miles inland at Levissi.

The town prospered and grew for centuries until the end of WWİ when civil war between the Greeks and Turks in Western Anatolia brought about a peace treaty brokered by the British. 400,000 Turkish-speaking Muslims were resettled in Turkey and 1,200,000 Greek-speaking Christians were to be sent to Greece.

The Muslim Turks did not want to settle in Levissi. They wanted farmland and were afraid the Greeks had poisoned the wells before they left. Levissi became a ghost town and, after an earthquake in 1957, the local farmers were given permission to recycle any useful timbers.

We spent 2-3 hours tramping the remains of Levissi and, in the evening, ate dinner overlooking the valley from a balcony of a restaurant growing from the rubble of an old house. The Levissi Garden Restaurant has an extensive cellar of Turkish wines and instead of a wine list gave out tastes until each diner found the perfect match to accompany an excellent meal.

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Photos

Kaya Koy
Ghost town

Levissi Garden Resturant
A great lıttle resturant wıth a good wıne cellar growıng out of the rubble.